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1 – 10 of 34Charles Smith and Michael Elmes
This paper explores insights from the psychology of C.G. Jung as it relates to leadership and the management of change in organizations. It draws especially upon Jung’s archetypal…
Abstract
This paper explores insights from the psychology of C.G. Jung as it relates to leadership and the management of change in organizations. It draws especially upon Jung’s archetypal interpretation of the biblical story of Job, and the relevance of this story to the modern day study of organizational life. It suggests that the transformations of consciousness represented within the story of Job are highly relevant to the ways that organizations and their leaders face chaotic, turbulent, and/or unpredictable circumstances. In particular, it describes the role of the feminine and the shadow within such situations, as forces that allow a new order to unfold during periods of intense change.
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Michael Elmes and Eleanor T. Loiacono
The purpose of this paper is to describe the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) interactive qualifying project (IQP) as a unique, project‐based service‐learning opportunity…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) interactive qualifying project (IQP) as a unique, project‐based service‐learning opportunity that offers teams of undergraduate students the opportunity to frame and investigate complex, unscripted problems with social and technological dimensions for non‐profit organizations and government agency sponsors.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper discusses the relationship of the IQP to the service‐learning literature, describes the proposal and delivery phases of the IQP, and then offers two short illustrative cases.
Findings
The paper concludes that IQPs teach students how to frame and use background research to investigate unscripted, real world problems. It teaches students to think critically, to improve their presentation skills, and to become more aware of the social and cultural dimensions of technology. For faculty, IQP advising enriches their relationships with undergraduate students and can sometimes lead to co‐authored publications. For the university, the IQP program is a source of positive publicity and good will from project center communities around the world.
Practical implications
The findings of this study might be useful to those schools and faculty interested in starting a service‐learning project program with a technological focus.
Originality/value
Projects can provide a unique service‐learning experience for undergraduate students. By focusing on problems at the intersection of society and technology, the WPI IQP sensitizes engineering and science students to the human dimensions of technology. It teaches students to grapple with unscripted problems that require an extensive background research, rigorous data collection, and thoughtful analysis.
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Michael Mustafa, Hazel Melanie Ramos and Siti Khadijah Zainal Badri
The purpose of this study seeks to examine how nonfamily employees' job autonomy and work passion can influence their job satisfaction and intention to quit in family…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study seeks to examine how nonfamily employees' job autonomy and work passion can influence their job satisfaction and intention to quit in family small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Current, research regarding the determinants of nonfamily employees' job satisfaction and turnover intentions has largely focused on the effects of family influence and family firm characteristics. Accordingly, not much is known of how the job characteristics and emotions of nonfamily employees influence their job satisfaction and intention to quit.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 160 nonfamily employees across 28 family-SMEs. Process macro was used to analyze the mediating role of nonfamily employees' work passion in the relationship between their job autonomy and job satisfaction and intention to quit.
Findings
Findings showed that nonfamily employees' job autonomy only had a significant direct effects on their job satisfaction and not their intention to quit. Subsequently, nonfamily employees' work passion was found to only partially mediate the relationship between their job autonomy and job satisfaction.
Originality/value
By focusing on the concepts of job autonomy and work passion, the study adds additional insights about the drivers of nonfamily employees' pro-organizational attitudes in family-SMEs. Also the study represents one of the first efforts in the literature to establish a link between job autonomy and the work passion of nonfamily employees with respect to their job satisfaction.
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Francesca Caló, Michael James Roy, Cam Donaldson, Simon Teasdale and Simone Baglioni
As the provision of public services in many advanced welfare states has increasingly come to be marked by competition, social enterprises have actively been encouraged by…
Abstract
Purpose
As the provision of public services in many advanced welfare states has increasingly come to be marked by competition, social enterprises have actively been encouraged by governments to become involved in the delivery of public services. While the evaluation of complex public health interventions has arguably become increasingly more sophisticated, this has not been the case where social enterprise is concerned: evaluation of the actual impacts of social enterprises remains significantly underdeveloped by comparison. This study aims to support the establishment of a robust evidence base for the use of social enterprise as a policy instrument.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper assesses the potential of three methodological approaches common in the evaluation of complex public health interventions and applies them to the complex realm of community-led social enterprise.
Findings
Only through the involvement of different comparator groups, based on the research questions addressed, would it be possible to disentangle the embedded characteristics of organisations such as social enterprises. Each of the methods adopted in this research is time-consuming and resource-intensive and requires the researcher to possess advanced skills. Public officials should recognise the complexity and resource-intensive nature of such evaluation and resource it accordingly. If the aim of policymakers is to understand the added value of social enterprise organisations, an integrative research approach combining different research methods and design should be implemented to improve generalisability.
Originality/value
This study applies a range of favoured approaches to evaluate “complex” public health interventions include systematic reviews, realist evaluation and quasi-experimental investigation. However, such evaluation approaches have rarely been applied before in the context of social enterprise.
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Ping Wang and E. Burton Swanson
The paper aims to raise the question: how can a new information technology's (IT's) early momentum toward widespread adoption and eventual institutionalization be sustained? The…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to raise the question: how can a new information technology's (IT's) early momentum toward widespread adoption and eventual institutionalization be sustained? The purpose of the paper is to examine sustaining technological momentum as a form of institutional work and entrepreneurship not widely recognized as such.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reports a case study of Business Week's special advertising section used in 2000‐2004 to both exploit and help sustain the momentum of customer relationship management (CRM).
Findings
The study finds that the advertisement section's producers employed it over several years to recurrently produce and disseminate credible discourse advancing CRM, incorporating models for action, and providing fresh meanings to the organizing vision for this technology so as to accentuate its progress and keep it worthy of continued attention. Most significantly, acquired momentum, while problematic to sustain, can nevertheless serve as its own resource, to be continuously reinvested in the form of public discourse which must itself be kept “lively” so that momentum may be extended.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the institutional explanation of IT diffusion by theorizing the process of sustaining technological momentum as an important institution‐building task. In particular, it illuminates the contribution of entrepreneurially produced and disseminated discourse to this process and provides an illustration and analysis of specific forms of institutional work, strategies, and tactics employed in the process. Additionally, the paper suggests that institutional work for sustaining technological momentum differs in certain respects from that needed to launch a technology so as to acquire momentum in the first place.
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Milorad M. Novicevic, Michael G. Harvey, M. Ronald Buckley and Garry L. Adams
The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive analysis of methodological issues that accompany the articles reviewing past research in strategic management.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive analysis of methodological issues that accompany the articles reviewing past research in strategic management.
Design/methodology/approach
The topic of the philosophical underpinnings and implications of historicism in strategy reviews is examined by contrasting and explaining deterministic, indeterministic, and underdeterministic views of strategy's intellectual history.
Findings
Three diverse philosophical approaches to historicist interpretation are found to be embedded in key review articles in the field of strategic management.
Practical implications
This paper indicates the need to develop and teach an accepted methodology of systematically reviewing and interpreting available knowledge in strategic management.
Originality/value
The unique contribution of this paper is that it indicates new paths that are important not only for the development of an alternative way to construct a shared history of the subject but also for the development of common norms for review articles that could help to advance strategic management scholarship.
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Vijaya Murthy and James Guthrie
This paper aims to understand how managers in an Australian financial institution coordinated different organisational actions for the management of the work health of employees…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to understand how managers in an Australian financial institution coordinated different organisational actions for the management of the work health of employees, by adopting “work‐life balance” initiatives.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses a narrative approach to analyse various internal and external documents and has also collected “self‐accounts” of employees.
Findings
It was found that management used “work‐life balance” initiatives to manage both the physical and emotional health of employees. Management's main focus was on community volunteering, which was satisfying for employees, but also of significant benefit to the organisation in terms of marketing and branding. Thus, management was able to use these initiatives to motivate employees to work towards organisational goals.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the developing literature on human competence accounting by using employee “self‐accounts” to compare with organisational statements in relation to worker health.
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Explores how developments in the ground‐breaking field of narrative family therapy might be applied to organizational change efforts. After an introductory discussion of some of…
Abstract
Explores how developments in the ground‐breaking field of narrative family therapy might be applied to organizational change efforts. After an introductory discussion of some of narrative therapy’s key orientations and practices (e.g. postmodern notions of language and power, influence mapping, problem externalization, unique outcomes, audiencing), an extended example is given where a narrative approach was used to effect change in a health‐care organization. The case is used to generate a series of research questions and directions.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the problems associated with the prevailing rhetoric in corporate communication. It proposes the consideration of nonviolent…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the problems associated with the prevailing rhetoric in corporate communication. It proposes the consideration of nonviolent rhetorical approaches.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper explains corporate communication's affinity for aggressive, militaristic language in terms of constraint of time, and expediency and efficiency of standardized communication strategies designed for large‐scale effectiveness. However, such communication strategies run the risk of dehumanizing the intended targets, distancing the individuals, and compromising socially responsible corporate behavior. The recent corporate scandals of unprecedented scale, occurring in spite of vast improvements in communication theory and technology, have highlighted the need for alternative approaches to corporate communication. Further, it examines the prerequisites that must exist for corporate communication based on nonviolent rhetoric to be effective. The conditions that must be present in the environment, in the corporation or its agent, and in the method of communication, for nonviolent rhetoric to prove effective are discussed.
Findings
Corporations seek to establish and modify relationships by influencing stakeholder beliefs, values, expectations and needs. Corporate rhetorical success is reflected in enhanced reputation and respectability, which in turn has significant economic consequences. To achieve these ends, corporations expend considerable effort on communication to educate, entertain and inform their stakeholders. Yet, scholars have generally neglected to study role of rhetoric and language in public relations.
Originality/value
This paper would be of value to researchers and practitioners, in the fields of corporate communication, organizational communication, public relations, and strategic management, seeking to promote, practice or otherwise influence socially responsible corporate behavior.
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